Technical Field
This application relates generally to Internet addressing.
Brief Description of the Related Art
Internet resources are located using so-called Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Internet Protocol v4 (IPv4) is the current Internet addressing scheme. The world, however, is running out of v4 IP addresses as reported by the service organizations that maintain them. In particular, IANA has reported that it will be out of IPv4 addresses to allocate as of July 2011, and ARIN, RIPE and APNIC report that they will be out of addresses to hand out as of April 2012. Moreover, before the addresses run out completely, they will become expensive to obtain.
The next generation Internet addressing scheme is IPv6. A key feature of IPv6 is that IP addresses are 128 bits long, as opposed to the 32 bits that are used for IPv4 addresses. This is a substantial increase in address length. IPv6 addresses generally are written as eight groups of four-digit hexadecimal numbers. Further information about IPv6 addresses is available in Internet Request for Comment (RFC) 4291. Domain name service (DNS) extensions to support IPv6 are described in RFC 3596.
Distributed computer systems are well-known in the prior art. One such distributed computer system is a “content delivery network” or “CDN” that is operated and managed by a service provider. The service provider typically provides the content delivery service on behalf of third parties. A “distributed system” of this type typically refers to a collection of autonomous computers linked by a network or networks, together with the software, systems, protocols and techniques designed to facilitate various services, such as content delivery or the support of outsourced site infrastructure. Typically, “content delivery” means the storage, caching, or transmission of content, streaming media and applications on behalf of content providers, including ancillary technologies used therewith including, without limitation, DNS query handling, provisioning, data monitoring and reporting, content targeting, personalization, and business intelligence.